New Raymarine Multi Function Display Units

[Gerry Zagorski]

We have some vintage 1999 electronics on Off The Hook so I was browsing around to see what the the latest and greatest is for electronics and happend upon this video of the new e Series Raymarine Multi Function Display Units you need to check out. I'm drooling on my keyboard right about now......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mVmdCYeLBxs

As my grandaughter Julia would say after watching a toy commercial on TV.... "I wish I had that" :D

Seems to me Raymarine was lagging behind and now they just just leap frogged everyone. Wifi, Bluetooth, the companion apps they have for Apple/Android smart phones/tablets and the thermal night vision imaging stuff is way cool!!

Not many real world reviews on these units out there.... Do any of you have any hands on experience with these units, or am I going to have to take one for the team and be the first?

[Gerry Zagorski]

Update - Sent the video to my boat partner and brother Joe (AV expert and toy junkie). He was all over it like Hobo on a muffin, ordered it online for us for Father's day. We're now like 2 kids waiting for XMAS morning.

He got the e7D which includes the sonar kit and US Coastal Maps. Also ordered a shoot through hull transducer.

For those of you not familiar with shoot through hull transducers, it's something to consider. First of all, you can only use shoot through ducers on solid fiberglass hulls, so if you have a cored hull you cant use them.

The advantage is they are mounted inside the hull so no holes in your boat and since they are inside the boat, they won't get fouled by marine growth and you don't have to worry about damaging or knocking them off it you hit something. They also tend to work better at running speeds since they are less prone to loosing the bottom which is usually caused by water turbulence/air bubbles on the running surface.

The down side is you might loose some sensitivity because the transducer has to shoot through your fiberglass.

Full report to follow once we install.

[dfish28]

We have the A60 w digital... Just plugged in the platinum maps edition, whoa it's nice, has channels marked like a street and is spot on, to the point of confident navigation even through the back channel of shark river

[Chrisk]

I'm looking for a less expensive, less fiddle around with unit myself but that looks sweet.

[Gerry Zagorski]

D ours comes with US Coastal Pre Loaded maps.... Do you think it still might make sense to purchase the Platimum Regional map? If so, what are the differences you saw??

[dfish28]

The platinum+ has much more detail though I can't say that your won't since it's brand new but the maps have more of a chart like view with wrecks and reefs pre- loaded and with ours the Channels are now colored in to make it much easier to stay in, along with all the additional hd overlay you can get- check out what you have already first, then compare, sorry for the late
Response

[Gerry Zagorski]

Thanks Adam.... Will probably do as you suggested. See the built in maps and go from there.

[Sea Bear]

A buddy of mine just tossed all his older electronics and replaced with the C127 unit. Looks really sweet, can't wait to put it to the test very soon.

[sportfishingusa]

i bought one of those cheap little northstar units for my depthfinder, friend of mine who does electronics and boats down south told me to take the ducer and mount it in the bilge in clear silicon.. Said as long as you make sure to press out air bubbles no problems.

I did it and had no problems and it reads great gerry!! you will be find with the thru hull!

[Gerry Zagorski]

Thanks Vinn... Will be installing it soon.

[Sea Bear]

Got to see the unit in action last week.

FWIW...
Overall very, very unimpressed with the sonar.
Rest of the unit "Eh".

Still prefer Furuno and Garmin.

[Capt. Lou]

Never used the Raymarine product but extensive time on Furuno & northstar.
The Garmin product I can compare
since a couple
of buddies have them.
I would never give up my units for them, also Simrad is excellent! Down time on heavy Use for over 40 seasons with various models ten days!
That's why I would never switch !

[Gerry Zagorski]

Brother Joe and i installed the unit yesterday. Pretty straight forward installation which was made simpler by not having to install an antenna since its built onto the unit. Set up was a breeze becuase it was all touch screen driven and very intuative.

This unit is also great for smaller boats since its a very compact yet has a 7 inch screen. This is due in large part to the touch screen which allows for the elimination of the space normally needed for dedicated buttons and cursor controls. It only has 3 buttons....power, cursor control and MOB. All of the rest of the functionality and control items are controlled by touch screens so more ipad like. It makes doing things like panning or zoming in or out on a chart very easy and intuative if you are used to using a smart phone or tablet.

Preloaded Navionics charts are very detailed and not sure if the upgrade to their 3d charts is going to be worth it for us. Screen is very bright even in direct sunlight. What really blows me away with this unit is how fast the screen refreshes when you zoom or pan on the map.This helps a lot when you are trying to set up on a piece because you dont have any screen repainting lag. This is becuase the unit has a separate and dedicated graphics processor and it makes things happen quick.

Headed out later today to get some more practical experience with it and will report more later but so far Im very impressed.

[dfish28]

Sounds sweet Gerry, good luck and have fun


Lol,
On a side note: if I knew there was something out there to make my ff even better, I would spend those few extra bucks, just because it's available.
C'mon- do it! , do it!

[dfish28]

I'm awaiting that report capt.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Got a chance to get some more practical experience with the unit... A few things I wanted to do to tailor the different screens for personal preferences.
As an example, on the standard chart plotter in addition to coordinates and all the map info I wanted speed, temp and depth from the sounder. I'm not one for reading manuals so I played around and sorted through the menus and got what I wanted fairly easy.

One issue we did have was getting the unit to recognize the transducer for the depth finder. The unit is set up for a plug and play type of set up. You plug something in it tries to determine what is is and confugure itself so you don't have to do it manually... Well the ducer we got was not being picked up by the plug and play stuff so we had to enter the ducer in manually. I think part of the reason was it was not one of the popular/standard transom or tilted element transducers, it was the shoot through hull one. Went into the manual settings and found the choice of ducers and our specfic model was not listed but we chose a model that in name looked close and it worked.

The shoot through hull ducer worked nice and we never lost bottom even while underway at full running speeds. This was an issue we had with the older Furuno which I think had a lot to do with it's placement. It's nice to be able to get accurate readings while underway now and to have those depths show up on a small window in the chart plotter screen.

And oh by the way the Android and Iphone Ray Viewer aps work great too. You connect your phone and the Raymarine unit up through the built in wifi in you phone and the machine and it streams the unit's screen image right to your phone. Not sure how practical it is but sure is cool. I would imagiine this would be most useful on larger vessels where multiple units in different locations like the fly bridge or in the salon would be nice. Rather then have to go out and purchase another expensive display slave unit @ $1000, you can use and iPhone, iPad or Android phone or tablet.

Still need to put some more time in with this unit but once again I'm pretty impressed with it. Features we use all the time like tracks, distance, entering coordinates, etc are all very intuative and the pop up keyboard and touch screen makes data entry very easy.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Never used the Raymarine product but extensive time on Furuno & northstar.
The Garmin product I can compare
since a couple
of buddies have them.
I would never give up my units for them, also Simrad is excellent! Down time on heavy Use for over 40 seasons with various models ten days!
That's why I would never switch !

Lou - I hear you on Furuno and Simrad. I've had a few of their units that served me well. They are built like tanks and never had any issues with them which is probabaly why they have such a loyal following, especially with the commercial fishermen. I like Garmins as well, easy to use and great customer support which is why they probably have the following that they do in the recreational space.

I've never been a big fan of Ray Marine. I thought they lagged behind others but this unit had a lot of great features that leap frogged many others and back in 2010 they were bought out by FLIR, a company that specializes in commercial thermal imagining.

Thought I'd give them a shot and so far I'm pleased I did.